Men’s Tennis: TCU Survives Epic Battle With Texas
We knew the duel between Texas would be a good match. Men’s tennis duels between these two have been tense affairs in recent years. We just didn’t know how good Saturday’s meeting would be. It was definitely one of those get your popcorn ready afternoons.
On Saturday, in the first outdoor competition of the season, the No. 2 TCU Horned Frogs hosted the No. 10 Texas Longhorns on the purple courts of the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center in Fort Worth. The Horned Frogs would win 4-3. It was a duel that came down to the third set on the final court to determine the winner.
TCU's Jake Fearnley won his singles match against No. 1 Eliot Spizziri. His set would be the decisive match that gave TCU the 4-3 victory over Texas on Saturday.
That final battle was on Court One between No. 14 Jake Fearnley and the nation’s top single player, Eliot Spizzirri. These two men have had some memorable matches against each other, and this one lived up to those. Spizzirri would win the first set 6-4. Fearnley would win the second set 7-6 after an 8-6 tiebreaker. In the third set, the two were tied at 4-4. Fearnley broke Spizzirri to take a 5-4 lead and then finished him off on serve to win 6-4.
"Obviously, an unbelievable college tennis match," Fearnley said. "I've been here for five years, and don't think I have experienced anything like that. Thank you very much to the Frog fans that came today and supported, you got me over the line there.”
In 2023, these two teams met four times, each winning twice. Of the four meetings between the two programs, three had a title on the line. The two first met in February in Chicago in the ITA Indoor National Championship finals. TCU won that match with a 4-0 shutout. The two then met in Fort Worth in March in a nonconference matchup, with Texas winning that one 4-1. In April, with the Big 12 regular season title on the line, Texas would win 5-2. Eight days later, in the Big 12 Championship in Lawrence, Kansas, TCU would get the 4-1 win. The two teams were headed for a decisive fifth meeting, but both teams lost in the NCAA semifinals in May.
Yesterday’s meeting of the two schools picked up where that competition left off last year. This was a nonconference matchup. The two will play later this season in Austin as part of Big 12 play. In Saturday’s duel, it wasn’t just Fearnley and Spizzirri with a close match. It was happening on almost every court in both the doubles and singles matches.
Doubles Play – TCU Won
- On Court One, the No. 5 doubles pair of Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives faced the No. 6 pair of Cleeve Harper and Spizzirri. The Frogs would easily take the set, winning 6-1.
- Texas answered back with a hard-fought set. Jack Pinnington and Fearnley fell short, losing 3-6 on Court Two.
- It came down to Court Three. Duncan Chan and Lui Maxted were tied at 5-5. The Frogs’ duo broke serve and then served the set out to win 7-5.
Singles Play – TCU 3 – Texas 3
Each team would win three singles matches in this epic battle.
- Gorzny, on Court Four, would get the first win, but it was not an easy one. His first set went to a tiebreaker. He would win the tiebreaker 8-6. He then had no problem in the second set, winning his match 7-6, 6-1. This made the score TCU 2 – Texas 0.
- Texas would get on the board as Tomas Jirousek would go down 4-6, 0-6 on Court Six.
- On Court Five, Maxted would lose his first set 1-6 but then rallied back to win his second set 6-3 and third set 6-3. This put the score at 3-1 in TCU’s favor.
- The No. 2 player in the nation, Texas’ Micah Braswell, defeated Pinnington on Court Two 6-3, 7-6 (7-5). The score was now TCU 3 – Texas 2, with two matches still to go.
- Texas would tie the duel on Court Three with another nailbiter match as Vives would lose 6-7 (2-7), 5-7.
- With the duel now tied at 3-3, it came down to the battle on Court One, with Fearnley coming out the winner in the third set, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4.
Next up: The Horned Frogs host No. 14 Baylor in a nonconference matchup on Sunday, March 10, at 2 p.m. in Fort Worth.
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